Glass is optically isotropic, but when stress is applied, this symmetry is broken and glass usually becomes birefringent. Several unusual glass compositions are known for which the birefringence is zero even in the presence of anisotropic stress; these include high contents of lead, thallium, or bismuth oxide. Such glasses are known as zero-stress optic materials and are key components in products such as optical research instruments and rear projection televisions. However, safety concerns and environmental issues prevent the use of those zero-stress optical glasses in many optical applications such as lenses, optical films, compact disks and liquid crystal display devices. In these applications, glass, e.g., portions of a liquid crystal display, can experience stresses due to mounting structures that are attached to the display or due to internal display structures. Stress induced birefringence in those glass substrates can cause issues for properly displaying image. U.S. Pat. No. 8,659,728 discloses an LC cell in which both top and bottom glass substrates of the LC cell are coated with a layer having a negative photo-elastic constant to negate stress induced retardation in the LC glass. However, this reference does not teach treatment of individual glass sheets to reduce retardation.